The company, which was co-founded by brothers Bob and Chris Wills and once employed 30 people, has endured some trying internal transitions. Of the few manufacturers left, we have the best products and service, and the most efficient operation, so we’re very cost-competitive.” “We sell to a relatively small and relatively stable worldwide market,” Meier said, “and because this is a mature industry - the sport is 40 years old, as is our company - the industry has long since gone through several shakeouts. Pearson, the chief glider designer, has expended significant effort wringing efficiencies from a workforce that is half its former size. That’s not the easiest task for an activity in which people were still dying by the dozens in the 1970s because they failed to recognize that this was aviation and not just recreation. Meier, as a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, has been to Washington to fight to keep the sport self-regulated. Wills Wing has faced many challenges: Ask company officials how they survived the recession and they will inquire, without a trace of sarcasm, “Which one?” Revenue is expected to hit about $3 million this year. In 2012, Wills Wing is on pace to sell 660 hang gliders, 28 more than in 2011.
A pilot flew the glider for nearly 473 miles in almost 11 hours. In July, a T2C 144 - made of advanced aluminum alloy tubing and ultraviolet-radiation-resistant Mylar fabrics - was used to break a 12-year-old world distance record. Wills Wing makes a line of hang gliders ranging in price from the $3,800 Falcon, for those relatively new to the sport, to the competition class T2C 144, which costs $8,585. “Cost of manufacture is not the main issue for us. “It would have required our direct presence there on a regular basis, which we don’t have the ability to do,” Meier said. For three more years, it tried to have glider covers made but discontinued the contract in 2011. “You could have things made there for less than the cost of the raw materials here,” Meier said.įrom 2003 through 2008, the company had the sails for its entry-level glider made at a factory in the Tai Po district of Hong Kong. But because the potential cost savings were so great, Wills Wing gave Chinese manufacturing a try.
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